PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference -
TILIC.O.882
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
2 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
148
This would be a great mistake, and it is one which it is well that my honourable colleagues should guard themselves against. It is quite true that Government has certain powers which it can exercise, and does exercise. But those powers are far from being suffi- cient to remedy the evils for which it is now proposed to provide a remedy. In the first place, there is the authority conferred on our Government by the Convention passed between the India Government and Home Government in regard to the abolition of free return passages. The conditions then agreed to were that all immi- grants who would be infirm and destitute would be sent back to India at the expense of Government; and that, if at any subsequent time, under any circumstances, any immigrants in the Colony could not find employment, our Government would also be under the obligation of sending such immigrants back to their country at the expense of this Colony. There are, besides, the powers expressly conferred on Government by Ordinance No. 31 of 1867. Under Article 18 of this Ordinance the Governor may grant a free passage to any new immigrant incapacitated from labour, and who, on that account, has to be exempted from the residue of his industrial residence. Under Article 62, a sufficient presumption arising from police reports or judicial proceedings that Indian immigrant is a confirmed vagrant, or a member of any association for
any criminal purposes, or has been implicated in any criminal act, the Governor may send such immigrant back to India. Now, Sir, it is clear that all these powers are limited, and so limited as not to provide a sufficient remedy for the evils sought to be obviated. All those immigrants who do not belong to the various categories specified in the Con- vention and in the law, and to whom the powers of the Governor do not extend, cannot be sent back, however long they may have been in the Colony, however deservingly they may have toiled, however urgent the reasons may be which make them desirous to go back; whether they have aged parents to see, children to go back and protect, property to realize, whatever, in fact, may be the legitimate cause of their desire to go back. Is it, I ask, our interest to retain all these, to subject them to a compulsory exile? But, Sir, there is more to be said in regard to the powers of Government in this matter. I have to point out that they are not simply insufficient, but that the exercise of some of their powers is even attended with very considerable risk. The remedy provided by the enactment, which empowers the Governor to send out of the Colony all confirmed vagrants and criminals, may at first view seem a very wholesome remedy, one which of itself should be sufficient to purify the social atmo- sphere of the Colony. But, 8ir, when you come to consider the practical results of the application of that remedy, you cannot fail to perceive how dangerous it is to administer it unrestrictedly and incautiously. If an immigrant has simply to persist in vagrancy to become entitled to a free return passage; if he must be implicated in criminal pro- ceedings to acquire a right to a free return passage; is it not evident that the free passage is held out as a premium and an incentive to vagrancy and crime? If so, is it not clear that the remedy should be cautiously and sparingly administered? This, Sir, is what I stated to the Police Inquiry Commission, and what in their Report, I regret to say, has been so misrepresented as to give to my opinion in regard to this matter a colour and a meaning which do not accurately convey my opinion. If I had to dwell on that Report I should have much more to say in respect to its errors and inaccuracies, but that is not the subject of our present discussion. I shall, therefore, not pursue it any further just now."
Reverting to the topic under discussion, allow me, Sir, to say that I consider that the adoption of the proposed measure would be highly beneficial in another important respect it would doubtlessly greatly strengthen the hands of our agenta in India, and enable them to carry out their requisitions far more easily than under present arrange- ments. It might here be asked what demonstrates the necessity of this further conces- sion on the part of our Government? What demonstrates it quite clearly is this; that although requisitions were sent to Indis last year for 7,000 immigrants, we only received 2,127; that although there be requisitions still in force for 8,000 men, we have only received 700 this year; and that our agents have both represented that the withholding of free return passages is impolitic, that it sets them at a great disadvantage, as all the other labour-recruiting agents are authorized to propose free hack passages. Such being the case, I cannot help thinking that it would be extremely imprudent on the part of those who are interested-the agriculture of the Colony-not to assent to a measure which would place in their hands the further means they require to be able to hold their ground against their competitors. It would, I think, be unfair to our agents themselves to expect them to compete successfully with the other labour-recruiting agents, and yet not to put them on the same footing as those other agents; not to put them on equal terms, not to give them the same facilities, and yet to expect from them
109
the same results, the same success in recruitments. It would be just as rational for a merchant to commission his agents or correspondents in India to purchase rice, or any other commodity for him, below its market value.
But there is another reason, Sir, which I feel sure will have no little weight in the consideration of the proposed Resolution; that is, that by passing the Resolution without waiting for any pressure from abroad, we would show the Indian Government that we are always ready to act up to the spirit of all our obligations towards our immigrants, whether those obligations be expressed or only implied, in laws, contracts, or conven- tions; and such a result could but enhance the confidence which I trust the Indian Government has not ceased to place in the fairness and propriety of our dealings with our immigrants.
Now, Sir, this leads me to a point which I look upon as one of the most important of those which are involved in the whole question before us. When free return passages were abolished, their abolition was consented to by the Indian Government for various reasons, foremost amongst which was this, that it was then considered "that it would be very easy at all times for immigrants to go back to India at their own expense, since a passage could then be obtained at so trifling a cost as 11. 7s." Now, a great change has come about in this respect, one that we cannot ignore. Passages cannot now be procured for twice that amount. My honourable friend the Acting Procureur-General, who is President of the Tender Committee, will be able to affirm the fact that the average cost of a return passage is now even rather above 31. 1ōs. So, one of the considerations which chiefly influenced the Indian Government when it assented to the abolition of return passages rested on grounds which have altogether changed. That being the case, I ask whether it is not in common fairness due to immigrants that the matter should be reconsidered?
I not only hope, Sir, that the matter will be fully and carefully reconsidered, but I am confident that it will be reconsidered in a spirit of perfect fairness to the immigrants as well as with due regard to all the other interests concerned. It has been the boast of the planters of this Colony, and rightly too, that in the conflict between free labour and slave labour this Colony held the foremost rank amongst the Colonial possessions of the British Empire. When the degrading blot of slavery was wiped away from the fair fame of England, they were the first to vindicate the practical wisdom of the policy-the first to work out and to proclaim to the whole world the practical advantages of a free immi- gration. I firmly hope, Sir, that they will not retrogress from a position so honourably acquired. I hope that this Council will to-day prove that it is ever ready to strike out of our system of labour every shadow of a restraint that may impart to it any semblance of a system of coercion; that it will prove that, in regard to liberality towards labourers, this Colony yields to none; and that we not only know how to use, but also how to requite in the fullest measure possible the toil of those to whom we are chiefly indebted for the development of our agricultural and commercial resources, and the enhancement of our wealth.
The Honourable Mr. Stein did not agree with the Resolution. He had listened with much attention both to the opinion of his Excellency and that of the Protector of Immi- grants but he had not heard anything which, to his mind, referred to the great causes why return passages were abolished. The real reason was that they prevented the settle- ment of the Indian population in the Colony. At that time, if any could recollect- but, unfortunately, there were few members of the Board who could go so far back-- the movement and the disorder was something very different to what it has been repre- sented to have been here to-day. It was to obtain peace and order more than any question of expense, that led this Government to seek the abolition of return passages, and it was on the recommendation of Mr. Gladstone, now the Prime Minister of England, but then Colonial Secretary, and of Earl Grey, that we decided to attempt to obtain a permanent supply of labour, and that then one might hope to have a state of order in the country, and that there might be peace and settlement instead of the constant movement, not merely from one quarter of the country to another, but from India to Mauritius, and vice versa. And the India Government, with Lord Dalhousie at its head, agreeing that return passages were unnecessary, they were abolished in 1852 or 1858. And the reasons why Mr. Gladstone and Earl Grey recommended the change were two-fold; viz., to insure à decrease in the disproportion of the sexes and to obtain as nearly as possible a permanent supply of labour; and what has been the result P At that time the proportion of the sexes was 10 to 15 per cent.; gradually this Govern- ment raised the proportions to 80 per cent. And as by these means we have a popula tion growing up in the Colony, the disproportion between the sexes already gradually decreased, will continue to decrease. By the Census of last year it appeared that the
[134]
2 F